Reviewed by annieb123 on
The Beginner's Book of Piano Adagios is an accessible and very well curated and arranged collection of adagios for piano edited by David Dutkanicz. Released 15th June 2022 by Dover, it's 64 pages and is available in paperback format.
This is a nice collection of slow pieces arranged for piano. They are selected from a wide range of well known composers (Rachmaninoff, Bach, Beethoven, Pachelbel, Debussy, Strauss, Chopin, Handel, etc) and many of them are excerpted from larger works. Each of the pieces includes a short introduction with a compact history of the composer and information about the work. All of the sheet music is in standard notation with high contrast easy-to-read graphics. The composers are all well known and these pieces are selected from their better known works, although there are a few which might not be familiar to all readers.
I like that these are classical pieces in the standard repertoire although in an admittedly much simplified form which will be accessible (and not too frustrating) for beginners. The bones of these well known works are clearly recognizable. The author and publisher have included QR codes for downloading the MP3 files to allow students to work at their own pace or with an instructor.
Five stars. Very well written in a graphically pleasing format. This would be a good candidate for school or public library acquisition, classroom instruction, and private self-study.
Disclosure: I received an ARC at no cost from the author/publisher for review purposes.
Reading updates
- Started reading
- Finished reading
- 13 July, 2022: Reviewed